Month: August 2015

AT Kearney, a leading global consultancy with expertise in the 3D Printing industry, recently released 3D Printing: A Manufacturing Revolution. Lots of great content in there, outlining their belief of how the market will evolve and grow at an average growth rate of 25% over the next five years en route to being a $17B global industry by 2020. This is a bit less than the Wohler’s Report’s estimate of $20B by 2020, but they are clearly believers in a continuation of the aggressive market growth we are seeing at 3Diligent.

The 16-page report has a number of interesting takeaways, but here are the big ones:

1. The question is not if but when companies need to consider 3D Printing. This is the very first line of the report. AT Kearney fundamentally believes in the disruptive nature of the technology, and that most every company will need to incorporate 3D Printing into their operations at some point – whether it’s simply for prototyping or as a more central part of the supply chain for mass production. Smart companies will get ahead of the curve and start down this road to 3DP integration sooner.

3. Value chains will be disrupted by 3D Printing. AT Kearney foresees a world where mobile and 3DP integration will allow for customers to see an item they like, customize it via their phone, and have it printed on demand to be picked up within hours. Naturally, this uproots the existing system, where decisions on inventory stocking are typically made months in advance, leaving customers to take or leave what’s there, with the power of the internet to hopefully aid them in finding a viable option.

4. The fastest growth will come from the jewelry and energy sectors. 3D Printing has been most readily adopted so far by aerospace, industrial, healthcare, and automotive companies, and significant growth of 15-25% per year is expected for each of those sectors. However, the most rapid growth is anticipated for the jewelry (25-30% per year) and energy (30-35% per year) industries.

5. Hardware improvements are needed to achieve production levels for many industries. While 3DP serves as a viable solution for prototyping and limited production run products, the end goal is to achieve rapid manufacture of production parts at significant scale. Gating criteria to achieving mass production are printer speed, available materials, assembly and testing, and achievable tolerances. While they expect these criteria will be achieved in the next 5-7 years for such products as cameras, biomedical device kits, and iPhone cases, scale production of such items as cars, apple watches, cosmetics, and helmets are likely to farther away.

6. New software platforms will be vital to support 3DP applications. To support this new ecosystem, software will need to be developed that supports the evolving supply chain.

We here at 3Diligent generally think AT Kearney has done a very nice job of setting the stage, and we encourage you to give the report a read yourself. For a bit of additional detail on applications and possibilities of 3D Printing, have a look at our Possbilities of 3D Printing report. Additionally, if you’re curious to know more about the prototype/production crossover point, you might be interested in having a look at the 3DP Crossover Point Post within our Economics of 3D Printing series.

In this week’s post we will go over the steps to submit an RFQ for 3D printing and Rapid Manufacturing using the 3Diligent platform. An RFQ is a Request For Quote and serves as a blueprint of your project for our Vendors. This is what you will utilize on the platform and what Vendors will reference to create their bid. You can watch our walkthrough in the video below and read the rest of this post for a step-by-step breakdown of the process.

Log In / Sign Up

The first step is to log in to the secure 3Diligent portal or sign up if you don’t have an account yet. You will be directed to your dashboard where you can see the production overview and lifecycle of your projects at the top, tutorial videos at the bottom, and access to different tools like the knowledge center, order history, orders and RFQs in process. When you click the “Create RFQ” button, you will be taken inside the tool to the project basics.

Project Basics

Once inside the “Create RFQ” tool you first need to enter the name and description of your project. This is very useful within the 3Diligent interface to get your project matched to the right set of Vendors. It’s also useful for our Vendors to know how this part fits in to a broader project, so they can offer up any expertise they may have straight away. Next is the confidentiality provision, if you want to opt into it. 3Diligent Vendors are always expected to exercise discretion with customer RFQs, but the provision provides additional protection.

Next, you will need to upload the files for your different parts. You are able to upload different types of CAD (computer-aided design) files, among them .stl, .igs, and .stp formats. You then need to specify which unit of measurement the files were designed in. This is particularly important for our Vendors to 3D print or manufacture the parts in the correct size. Then, there is a box to choose whether there is one single part to the RFQ (one file) or multiple distinct parts (more than one file); this makes it easier for our Vendors to know what they’re working with.

The next step is to choose the quantity that you need for the parts you have uploaded and set up the delivery date. Setting the delivery date allows you to choose when you want your parts in hand, not necessarily when the parts are going to be produced. Keep in mind that we have Vendors all over the U.S. who will be bidding for your job, so the delivery date allows them to plan for your project. Next, you choose your material and the process you want our Vendors to use. One feature we have on our site is the option to “let vendor choose” for material and process. With rapid manufacturing, a lot of times it’s hard to tell exactly which material/process is needed. Our Vendors can provide you with an opinion as to whether 3D printing, CNC machining, or Injection Molding would be best. The beauty of 3Diligent is that you can get quotes using different processes and you can choose one that is best suited to your needs.

Project Specifics

Now we get into more specifics for the project. First, specify what type of surface finish you would like, be it smooth (which may need further processing) or rough. The next step is submitting the specifications and tolerances, which you can do by highlighting them in the box provided or alternatively by uploading a PDF file with any drawings or pictures. Finally, there is a field for “Additional Requests” where you can post anything that might not be clear in the rest of the process. This could be anything from assurances that certain features will come out in the print, an insurance that they will provide an inspection report, or really anything that comes to mind that you might need from a Vendor – this is where you will request it.

Shipping and Payment

Next, we get into the details of logistics where you specify the shipping address. This information allows us to give the Vendor a zip code so they can provide a complete bid inclusive of sales tax and shipping costs. Then we provide you with access to our payment information. Bank Transfer, PayPal, Credit Card, and Retainer are all options. Certain payment options, such as Credit Card and Retainer, allow you to move quickly on any bid you might receive.

Submit RFQ for 3D Printing

Lastly we are taken to the summary page where you can review all the details of your RFQ submission. If you are not ready to submit yet, you can save it or alternatively you can submit that RFQ. After that, all that is left to do is say “Congrats” – you have submitted an RFQ! Be on the look out for bids soon after submitting your RFQ along with messages from our Vendors regarding any questions they may have. As you can see, the RFQ submission process can be quite easy by following a few simple steps. If you have any questions or comments, please drop us a note in the comment section or email us at customersupport@3diligent.com and we’ll be happy to help you in any way we can.

In our last post, we touched on the evolution of manufacturing from the days of antiquity to today. Per its closing comments, we’re in the midst of a paradigm shift in manufacturing. While Globalization has been defined by subtractive manufacturing at tremendous scale in low cost economies, this next generation will be defined by something quite different. While global manufacture of simple parts in low cost locations will persist for generations to come – with simple, standard parts, it will probably always be the way – additive manufacturing for fast turn, complex parts will increasingly integrate into the supply chains of corporations around the world. In this post, we’ll dive deeper into a comparison of the “globalization” manufacturing approach relative to 3D Printing, discuss how key cost inputs are likely to evolve, and how that impacts the “3DP Crossover Point.”

A Quick Recap

To level set from our previous post, we find it useful to track the evolution of key inputs that have driven the cost of goods over time. The key inputs we looked at were Material, Labor, Shipping, and Overhead. As time has gone by, costs on the whole have gone down. At each step of the way, a different lever or combination of levers were pulled to drive down this cost. For instance, raw materials grew cheaper through better extraction techniques, labor cost went down through outsourcing to lower cost markets, and shipping cost dropped through advances in transportation. We’ve generally seen an increase in what we’re calling overhead as an overall percentage of cost, as sales, marketing, and management layers grew. But in recent years, we’ve even seen the cost of that layer reduce with the offshoring of white collar jobs, as supported by advances in telecommunications support increasingly global work forces.

The New Cost Calculation

CAD-based manufacturing more broadly, and 3D Printing more specifically, stands to take this evolution a step farther. To recap some of the detail provided in the previous post, the comparison between Globalization-style manufacturing and 3D Printing is summarized here:

As it stands, 3D Printing has markedly higher raw material costs, comparable labor cost (due to a lower amount of labor required), and lower shipping costs (because it tends to be shipped a shorter distance). 3D Printers are expensive, but so too are traditional lathes, mills, etc. The net effect of these tradeoffs is that certain jobs lend themselves to one process or the other. For now, the jobs that tend to make sense for 3D Printing / CNC Machining are rapid turn parts in small quantities. For these smaller job, the investment in tooling required to run a traditional manufacturing process can simply be too high. For instance, an injection molded part might cost tens of thousands for the mold but just a few dollars in variable unit cost. To 3D print the part might only cost $10 per unit with virtually no setup cost – so long as a the print bed is filled, maximum . As you can ascertain from this example, a crossover point tends to exist where it’s better to make a bigger up front investment and smaller unit cost. But up to that point – so long as there aren’t material limitations – 3D Printing or CNC Machining is the better choice.

The Evolving 3DP Crossover Point

We only see the point at which 3D Printing gives way to traditional manufacturing processes gradually pushing out in the future:

As advances in material and equipment cost open the door to localized manufacturing (lower shipping costs), the crossover point between rapid manufacturing and traditional manufacturing will push to higher volumes

Currently, material costs are very high because manufacturers have operated with a razor and blade model – often selling the printers at relatively thin margins and capturing profit on proprietary materials to be used in those printers. With that said, the rapid expansion of the market and recent announcements of new entrants stands to suggest an increasingly open materials marketplace. In this future state, materials prices stand to go down – especially as large materials companies who have been waiting for the industry to mature begin pushing into the market themselves.

Labor costs are positioned to drive down in a similar way. 3D Printing is driven by Computer Aided Design (CAD) files – they read a design that’s been uploaded into the printer, and it builds the part. Currently, there is a significant degree of art to go along with the science of 3D Printing, which means engineers play a significant role in managing the production. But while even industrial machines are not simple push-button part machines, that is the direction printer manufacturers are going. In this way, labor rates in a given location don’t matter, because there are virtually zero man hours allocated against production of a given part.

This then leads to Shipping costs, which also stand to be lower with 3D Printing. Because 1) material cost should be fairly equal around the world and 2) labor cost should be a non-factor, then the need to utilize far away markets for production is significantly diminished. Instead, customers can bring production in-house or, as our platform facilitates, utilize service providers who’ve invested in the technology. Doing so massively drives down the cost of shipping.

Conclusion

Now that production quality materials have become available for industrial 3D Printers, there are many occasions when 3D Printing is a better alternative to traditional manufacturing techniques. For now, those projects are the ones with limited volumes, high complexity, and quick turnaround needs. That limited 3DP to a prototyping niche for the past few decades. However, the door is opening to spare parts manufacturing and limited run production parts in the present, and in the not-too-distant future the larger scale fabrication of production parts.

After shedding jobs for more than 10 years, our manufacturers have added about 500,000 jobs over the past three. Caterpillar is bringing jobs back from Japan. Ford is bringing jobs back from Mexico. After locating plants in other countries like China, Intel is opening its most advanced plant right here at home. And this year, Apple will start making Macs in America again.

There are things we can do, right now, to accelerate this trend. Last year, we created our first manufacturing innovation institute in Youngstown, Ohio. A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything. There’s no reason this can’t happen in other towns.

– President Obama, 2013 State of the Union Address

There is no shortage of buzz about the potential of 3D Printing to bring manufacturing back to America. Much of this buzz is justified. As we’ll talk about in Part Two of this post, 3D Printing stands to fundamentally alter the economics of manufacturing. But to appreciate how this will unfold, we first need to look at the history of manufacturing. We need to understand where we are today and how we got here. With this understanding, we can better foresee where we’ll go, and the implications of that evolution.

With that in mind, this post is dedicated to discussing the evolution of manufacturing since its earliest days – with an emphasis on the massive advancements of the last two centuries.

Primer on Input Costs

As we embark on this journey through the history of manufacturing, I think a few input costs prove most useful to track over that time. These input costs are the key variables that make up the total cost of a product, and they have evolved significantly over time. You’ll readily find these variables in an economics text book or the revenue statement of just about any business around.

Material – This is the component of cost for the raw material inputs to a product. Basically, the stuff used to make a product.

Labor – This is the cost of manual labor included in a product. Basically, the cost of the folks who are working in the assembly line or warehouse to get the product made and out the door. When combined with Raw Material cost, you get COGS as listed in a typical revenue statement.

Shipping – This is the cost of getting finished products from your business to the market your products service.

Overhead (Machinery, Property, SG&A) – This is the cost of having a business and keeping the lights on. It includes the machinery purchased to make goods, the lease/mortgage to house your operations, and the basic personnel required to oversee a business’ operations.

As we talk through the evolution of manufacturing, we’ll try to be consistent in our rankings on the basis of historical comparison. So you might think of a high/medium/low rating as a comparison to the historical level for that input cost to create a single product. In other words, cost of labor today is lower today than in the past based on the productivity of that labor – even though the wage might be higher than in the past.

Pre-Industrial Era (2000BC – ~1800AD)

Pottery in Ancient Greece is one the first examples of manufacturing

In the early days of manufacturing, you wouldn’t call it manufacturing. You’d call it making. People simply made stuff. Think in terms of Homer’s Odyssey through to Colonial times. In this era, the stuff people made was based on what was handy and local. Aside from colossally expensive feats like the Pyramids, people manufactured with what was in their proverbial back yard. And even with the Pyramids, goods were just floated down the Nile. Fast forward to the Colonial era, people still used what was local to them or what was easy to ship down a river. The invention of roads and nautical trade routes allowed for things like luxury goods to be transported across longer distances – for instance the Atlantic and the Silk Road – but large scale transport of basic goods simply didn’t exist. Here’s how the economics of that looked:

Material – Medium. People just used whatever stuff was lying around. This eliminated the cost of extraction, but it limited the materials used. The notion of using materials from anywhere other than “over that hill there” basically was a non-starter.

Labor – High. It was whoever was around to make it. And to make something took a lot of manpower. So much, in fact, that people in power would often choose to tip the scales in favor of keeping costs down through vassalage or slavery – so artificially low despite still being pretty high.

Shipping – High. Roads as we know them now hardly existed. And the stuff moving across them was a horse, donkey, or camel – not exactly geared for massive shipment.

Overhead (Machinery, Property, SG&A) – Non-existent. Quite simply, there weren’t a lot of machines around to do work – it was all hand labor. Machinery costs didn’t exist, property costs were somewhat irrelevant due to the lack of outside competition, and formal sales and marketing divisions didn’t exist.

Summary: It was expensive to make just about anything, so you used what was handy.

First Industrial Revolution (~1800 – ~1840)

The cotton gin was a game changer that brought the first industrial revolution

With the arrival of the cotton gin, the game changed. Harvesting cotton became more efficient and suddenly textile mills started appearing near rivers. That’s where the power of rushing water could be used to power looms and expedite the production process. During this phase of manufacturing history, the cost of material went up a bit – people were investing in cultivation of the land – but the amount of labor required for a singular task went down. While knitting a new shirt once took weeks or months (just ask my mom, who’s been at work on family Christmas stockings for the better part of her adult life), it suddenly just took hours or days. This reduction in labor input singlehandedly offset higher costs of overhead in the form of machinery, and material costs, as “what was lying around” didn’t always work nicely with a loom. Here’s how the cost picture looked:

Material – High. As the possibility true manufactured goods arrived, so too did slightly higher input costs. Looms only run on cotton, so you paid whatever it cost for a whole bunch of folks to manually plant and reap the crop.

Labor – Medium-High. The cost of manufacturing things was reduced manifold. What once took months or years took days or months.

Shipping – High. Rivers were the cheapest means of shipping. Roads weren’t paved. And the vessels moving on those thoroughfares were of a distinctly manual nature.

Overhead – Low. This went up as well. Whereas before people were just doing their own thing, buildings needed to be put up to house machinery, and some limited management had to be created to oversee the worker bees.

Summary – The first machines significantly dropped the cost of labor. It was still expensive as heck to ship anything anywhere, and some overhead costs were created to oversee larger groups of people doing a task, but those high costs were more than offset by customer demand for these goods and the relatively lower amount of labor required to make them.

Second Industrial Revolution (~1840 – ~1910)

The assembly line made manufacturing much faster but increased overhead costs

This phase of manufacturing history was defined by the arrival of the factory as we know it. Massive facilities were created to process raw materials and turn them into usable ones (e.g., US Steel, Standard Oil) and companies grew up to efficiently turn those input goods into finished goods (e.g., Ford’s assembly line). During this phase of manufacturing history, the cost picture looked like this:

Material – Medium. Increasing specificity in material needs – namely coal, steel, and oil – drove up the standard cost of material. Extracting that stuff wasn’t easy – people mined mountainsides and dug oil wells for these substances that had suddenly become immensely valuable. To trim down the cost of moving raw material around, factories tended to locate close to the places where mining opportunities existed.

Labor – Medium. Again, efficiencies in manufacturing drove down the input cost of labor significantly. But the sheer manpower required to make Model Ts and other industrial products of the era was significant.

Shipping – Medium. Considering on its march downward, shipping costs declined as railroads began lining the countryside. Oftentimes, railroads would be run directly into factories so that goods might be delivered straight to market.

Overhead – Medium. More personnel was required to oversee growing numbers of employees in a factory.

Summary – Shipping costs tracked down a bit with the arrival of railroads. Labor input for a given part also dropped relative to the cost of the part, as plants and assembly lines made industry as we know it possible. Sure, a bit of additional management had to be created to oversee the many folks in a factory, but again, market demand for these manufactured goods and the savings created by more efficiently making them more than offset any cost increases.

The Arrival of Modern Transport (1950-1980)

Trucks along the interstate system further drove cost down

On the whole, the manufacturing world tracked on the path that was created for it during the Second Industrial Revolution until this era. During this time, shipping costs took another step downwards, as the interstate system grew up and rapid transportation from one state to another was possible. Manufacturing companies began moving their operations out of expensive downtown areas in favor of locations on the periphery of town near “circumferential highways” that circled around a central business district from a few miles out.

Material – Low. Advancements in extraction continued. The cost of shipping extracted materials to factories dropped as the interstate system allowed for efficient delivery to factories.

Labor – Medium-Low. The labor input cost for a given good also continued downward. Increasingly automated machines required fewer workers to complete what was done in the past.

Shipping – Medium-Low. With the arrival of the interstate system, shipping costs dropped even lower than before.

Overhead – Medium-High. The sheer number of workers in the factory didn’t materially change, but the administrative staff did. Increased specialization in the workforce harkened the arrival of sales and marketing departments. Companies relocated to the suburbs, reducing property costs relative to more expensive downtown locations. This offset the cost of more “white collar,” higher dollar workers.

Summary – Labor costs continued marching downward as factories increasingly automated, requiring fewer workers on the line. Jobs in sales, marketing, and middle management were created, filling this void. The reduction in shipping cost was really the driving force between overall reduction in cost of goods.

Globalization (1980 – 2015)

Shipping routes show the density of commercial shipping

Globalization has been defined by “offshoring” – the relocation of jobs to lower cost countries. Free Trade agreements opened the door to moving manufacturing to lower cost locations like China and Southeast Asia. Then, advancements in telecommunications and the arrival of the internet allowed for the offshoring of various “white collar” jobs like telemarketing and web development. Globalization has been in many ways defined by the decision of where labor is located, and whether the cost of local labor for a given task can be justified vs. utilizing overseas workers.

Material – Low. The technologies to extract materials from the earth remained as efficient as they were in the previous generation.

Labor – Low. Trade agreements like NAFTA and Trans-Pacific Trade Pact opened the door to lower labor-cost countries like Mexico (NAFTA) and China.

Shipping – Medium-Low. More efficient vehicles drove down the cost of shipping over land and sea. At the same time, the distances they had to cover tended to be far greater.

Overhead – Medium. Overseas properties tended to cost less to lease, although the management layer to manage international operations was higher. Equipment cost similar amounts wherever it was sold, although local production of equipment sometimes created overhead reductions as well.

Summary – Without anywhere to turn to continue the inexorable march toward more affordable goods, manufacturing increasingly was moved overseas to lower cost locations. Only those industries deemed worthy by governments of “special protection” could sustain themselves competitively against foreign competitors that were capable of producing similar goods at lower prices.

Third Industrial Revolution (2015 – TBD)

3D printing is bringing the 3rd industrial revolution.

You may have noticed the trend line here. Companies have been looking for ways to drive down cost since the dawn of time to maximize their ability to win in an increasingly competitive, now-global, marketplace. Where can companies turn when Material and Labor costs have gone seemingly as low as they can go? 3D Printing offers an interesting potential solution, fundamentally changing cost calculus myriad ways. Since it is a work in progress, you’ll note that we’ve included trend information in the ratings here.

Material – Medium trending down. On a historical level, 3D Printed materials aren’t inordinately expensive, but they are in comparison to the hyper efficient extraction techniques developed to date. For any 3D Printing process, true raw materials aren’t an option – they only accept materials that have been pre-processed into powder, filament, or liquid resin form. However, as more competitors enter the market and advancements in material science take place, these costs will go down.

Labor – Low trending toward zero. Whereas even the most automated operations require some manual operation, 3D Printing is trending toward almost no labor input. That is significant, because when you’re multiplying an hourly wage by zero, the product is zero. The cost advantage on labor-intensive manufacturing that lower-cost countries enjoy gradually fades away.

Shipping – Low trending toward zero. Because production can co-locate next to its target market – with CAD files beamed via the internet to nearby production options – the cost of shipping is significantly reduced. In fact, as 3D Printers proliferate and penetrate all corners of the globe, the ability to eliminate shipping altogether is created. A customer can simply arrange for printing in-house or at a nearby printer and pick up the good rather than have it shipped.

Overhead – Medium, trending down. 3D Printing equipment is expensive – very expensive. Top of the line plastics printers cost a few hundred grand; metal printers often over a million dollars. Bringing operations back onshore inherently carries higher cost for a given space, but the spaces required for 3D Printing tend to be smaller. Instead of a massive factory, a fully functioning 3D Printing service bureau can exist in a space the size of a living room.

Summary – 3D Printing heralds the arrival of a new generation in printing. Quite simply, the crux of 3D Printing’s economics is the potential savings in labor and shipping vs. the higher costs of machinery and material. In smaller part runs, 3D Printing is already the more cost effective option. Our 3D printing customers regularly see significant savings for smaller runs of goods than they would going overseas for a 3D Printed, machined, or injection molded part. As we watch the cost of equipment and material drop over time, this will only become more pronounced, eventually making larger production runs more cost effective and local in nature. In this way, the reshoring of manufacturing will take place.

Conclusion

Over the history of manufacturing, there has been an inexorable march toward reduction in cost. By pulling the levers of material, labor, shipping, and overhead cost, people are now able to access a myriad of goods at a fraction of the price of even a generation before.

But so what? Cost coming down shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. What are we to make of this evolution? Why does 3D Printing’s arrival really matter? Does it signal massive reshoring of jobs? Will cost really come down significantly?